


I Saw The Northern Lights, Convinced It Was The End Of Time

by arianne-of-porne (allnuthatchforest)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allnuthatchforest/pseuds/arianne-of-porne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Satin is sick. Jon knows he shouldn't worry, but he does anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Saw The Northern Lights, Convinced It Was The End Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Northern Lights" by St. Vincent.

It has been nearly an hour since Satin went downstairs to fetch breakfast. Jon’s stomach is starting to growl, and Mormont’s raven seems able to sense his hunger, croaking out “Corn! Corn!” at more and more frequent intervals. Jon had asked for bacon, eggs and bread, but right now he thinks he’d settle for corn, cooked or raw and unground. Or mashed neeps. Or gruel. Just about anything, really. 

If Dolorous Edd had still been Jon’s steward, this mild annoyance of his wouldn’t be tempered in the least by worry. But Satin has enemies at Castle Black, Jon knows, both among the brothers of the Night’s Watch and their guests. He knows it’s probably no cause for alarm, knows as well that Satin is a man grown and doesn’t need to be shepherded through his responsibilities, but the nagging doubts lead Jon down the tower’s spiral staircase and down to the kitchens. 

Only Three-Finger Hobb and one of his assistants are in the galley when Jon walks in; Hobb is breathing down the neck of a trembling recruit who looks into the bubbles of the stew he’s stirring as if it’s a difficult arithmetic problem. 

“Saw him about when the bell chimed seven, Lord Snow,” Hobb says. “Lad was shivering like he was walking around with ice in his knickers. I told ‘im the only cure for a burn in the crotch was a maester’s salves and a septon’s prayers.” 

Jon shakes his head. “I told you, Hobb, don’t be cruel about his past.” 

Hobb shrugs and looks at Jon, a momentary reprieve for the recruit before he gets a smack on the back of the head for adding too much of something crumbly and brown. “The lad can take a joke better’n you can these days, m’lord.”

It’s Jon’s turn to sigh. “Do you know where he went?”

Hobb jabs his hand in the direction of the staircase. “Down to the salt cellar, I think. He was mumbling something about the bacon bein’ bland.”

Jon nods his thanks, grabs a candle from the wall sconce and proceeds down the narrow stairs to the salt cellar. He hasn’t been down these rounded, uneven steps, a peril for the clumsy and overeager, since he was Lord Mormont’s steward, and he used to thank the gods for his training in swordfighting because he didn’t think otherwise he’d have the agility to make it without tripping. He hopes Satin, in his mysterious shivering state, hasn’t become a casualty of it; it would be a shame for one who’d survived battle against wildling warriors and life among the hardened men of the Night’s Watch to be defeated by a staircase.

“Satin?” Jon says quietly, moving his candle in front of him so that an arc of pale light illuminates the dark cellar. There’s a rustle of movement from below, which might be anything, rat or cat or recruit shirking his duties. Jon lowers the candle and sees the edge of a black-clad shoulder against the salt barrel, and when he looks over he sees a pale face that can only be Satin’s, head leaning back against the barrel, eyes closed as if asleep. He reaches out to touch Satin’s shoulder, and Satin stirs with a groan.

“My lord,” Satin says, voice hoarse. “I don’t know what happened. I came down to fill the salt canister, and next thing I knew…” 

Jon’s nudges something on the floor, and he bends to pick it up. It’s a pewter candlestick, and next to it is a candle stuck to the floor with melted wax; Satin must have dropped it when he fell.

Satin stands, slowly and shakily. When he’s fully upright, he rests his weight against the barrel, and he’s trembling so badly Jon fears he’s going to collapse again. 

“You look terrible,” Jon says.

Satin looks at the floor. “I don’t know why,” he says, sounding forlorn. “I combed my hair upon waking, and trimmed my beard…I feared there may have been the start of a pimple on my neck, but I pray it won’t interfere with my duties.”

Jon can’t help but chuckle. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that you look ill.” 

Satin’s eyes widen. “”Not ill, my lord, only perhaps a little tired.” 

“I don’t allow liars in my employ, Satin. Come along.” He grasps Satin by the arm, bolstering him so he can stand upright. “I’m taking you to bed.” 

After he says that, Jon wishes he’d chosen less suggestive words. But he doubts that Satin noticed or cared in his state. He hoists Satin’s arm around his own shoulders, supports most of his weight as they walk back up the stairs and through the corridors of the castles. A few of the men they pass gape or look as though they’re nocking snide comments on their tongues like arrows; Jon merely looks past them as if they aren’t there. Anyone with half a mind should be able to see that Satin is unwell. His steps drag heavy, his eyes are dull and glassy, and Jon can feel his body stiffening and trembling far more than the cold calls for. 

Once they reach Jon’s bedchamber, Jon helps him to the bed. For a moment Satin doesn’t lie down, just sits there, still and dazed. Then he doubles over, as if in sudden pain, and Jon rushes to fetch the washbasin from the nightstand as Satin’s body convulses in loud retching. The bowl manages to catch most of the vomit, but some ends up on Satin’s knees.

“Let’s get these off, shall we,” Jon says softly, putting the bowl aside and setting to work unlacing Satin’s boots. He pulls off Satin’s breeches so that he’s wearing only his smalllclothes. “Lie down. Sitting like a gentleman when you vomit doesn’t make you appear more dutiful or better-mannered. Your Southron god of work will forgive you for completing this particular task from bed.” He gives Satin a small smile, then winces at himself, remembering that Satin’s previous work involved being in exactly that position. 

“I don’t know if the Smith approves of the sort of hammering I engaged in,” Satin says. “But tha—” Another bout of vomiting interrupts whatever Satin was about to say. His hair falls forward as he heaves, and Jon, balancing on the edge of Satin’s mattress, brushes the errant lock back behind Satin’s ear so that it doesn’t get in the way. 

Satin vomits until Jon can’t imagine there’s anything left in his stomach, and then he vomits again. Jon brings the pitcher over, pours water over Satin’s hands to clean them, helps him prop against the wall to drink directly from the lip. He feels helpless; he has no idea how to care for a sick person, barely remembering the few times he was ill as a child, and he tries to remember anything Old Nan or Maester Luwin had said. Satin’s forehead is as hot as fireplace bricks, and it’s common sense that fevers must be cooled. Apart from that, though, he knows little. 

“Is this a fit job for a Lord Commander, my lord?” Satin asks through pallid, cracked lips. “Surely you have duties more important than being a sick-nurse to your own steward?”

Jon shakes his head. “Nothing that won’t sort itself out without my help,” he says drily. 

Satin’s laugh turns into a cough, and Jon regrets trying to make light of the situation. He ought to be grim and silent, ought to treat Satin as a servant and not a friend, but he never could resist sharing a gentle jest with Satin when they were alone. From time to time he has wondered how much of Satin’s amiability and sweetness is a pretense, a means of surviving learned in a profession where one had to be whatever another demanded—it was Satin himself who explained this part of the job to him, as Jon knew nothing of the world of whores and brothels before. Underneath Satin’s impeccable courtesy, Jon wonders, does he also resent who Jon has become? 

Now is not the time to ask.

“I’ll be right back,” Jon says, taking a moment to look at Satin and make sure that he appears to be resting comfortably, the pitcher within his reach, the washbasin next to his head. 

“To fetch another steward?” Satin groans. 

And Jon knows he should do as Satin’s suggesting. King Stannis must be watched and placated constantly, and between the King’s retinue, the Free Folk, and the men of the Watch there are enough questions, concerns and complaints every day to feed every castle along the Wall could they be turned into grain. But there’s no one he trusts enough, and if he pulled a steward from his tasks there would be questions. He can hear them now; _why does Lord Snow’s handmaid deserve a private sick nurse?_

He could surely find a healer among the Free Folk as well. But the truth is, he rather enjoys this excuse not to deal with the day-to-day business of the Watch. He enjoys the increasingly rare days when it’s just them alone—Satin flitting in and out with messages or sitting at his table mending cloaks and woolens while Jon reads or thinks over some unconquerable problem. He doesn’t know what he’d do without Satin’s humming to himself as he stitches, or the way Satin clicks his tongue from time to time when he’s concentrating. 

People die of fevers sometimes, Jon knows. 

“While you’re ill,” he says, “you may consider me your steward.”

Satin smiles wickedly. “Does that make me Lord Commander? Can I order men to battle each other for my enjoyment?”

Jon returns his smile, then says, full of mock pomposity, “Do not make me regret this breach of authority.”

“Never, my dear Lord Snow. I would never.” 

*

Jon returns from the kitchens with linens, a bucket of ice and some advice from Three-Fingers Hobb that seems sound enough; it won’t be harmful at any rate. When he enters the bedchamber Satin is on his back, eyes closed, head lolled to the side. His face is as pale and damp as clay, and big drops of sweat roll down his forehead, along his jaw, down the curve of his slender neck and into the hollow of his throat. For a moment Jon fears Satin isn’t breathing, and his own breath seems to clot in his throat, but when he comes closer he can see the slow rise and fall of Satin’s chest. 

Satin’s eyes open, and his gaze drifts to Jon. “You look like you’ve just heard three horns.” 

Jon says nothing, only tries to return his face to a more dignified and inexpressive state. He sits on the bed beside Satin and touches his fingertips to the lacing on his tunic. 

“ _Maester_ Hobb says I’m to bathe you in icewater to bring the fever down,” Jon says. 

“Maester Hobb,” Satin murmurs, then laughs weakly “A whore as a lord’s squire, now a cook as a maester. What next, an ass on the Iron Throne? Although some say—”

“Shhh,” Jon says. He dips the linen in the frigid water and dabs the cloth over Satin’s cheeks, his burning forehead, his neck and collarbones. He asks Satin’s permission with a look before unlacing the tunic fully to expose his chest. 

While he bathes the smooth skin of Satin’s chest, Satin closes his eyes, shifting restlessly in the furs.

“Hold still,” Jon says as if talking to a child who fidgets while getting his hair cut.

“It hurts everywhere,” Satin sighs. 

His fever seems to be worsening; his eyes are more unfocused, his skin hotter to the touch. _When the blood boils, it can turn a man’s brains to soup,_ he remembers Old Nan saying. A steward comes to the door bearing a message from Bowen Marsh, but Jon waves the boy away after learning that the issue isn’t urgent. Then, thinking better of it, he flags the boy down in the corridor, asking him to inquire among the Free Folk for a healer. 

He waits. The ice melts. He keeps dabbing Satin’s sweat away with the cloth, asking him insipid questions that get increasingly brief replies. Jon knows that this was a mistake. Satin’s illness will not prove fatal, and even if it does, he is the leader of an army; he must become accustomed to losing men. Perhaps, he thinks, that’s the problem. He’s already lost so many. His father, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Lord Mormont, Ygritte, all dead; Arya lost; his brothers on the Wall no longer his friends; Sam half a world away in Oldtown. Satin’s voice, his laughter, the scent of his rosewater and the Myrish glass shine of his curls—it is strange to realize that they are the closest thing he has to home these days.

It won’t do to think so tenderly about the presence of a man one might easily have to order to his death one day soon, very soon.

Satin begins murmuring to no one, words Jon can’t understand. Jon tries not to listen, sure the words mean nothing and aren’t meant for his ears anyway, until Satin says something that sounds like _kiss me._ Jon pulls back and looks at the rippling shadow of the wall torch. Flickering, like a tongue.

 _You kissed me_ , Satin says, sounding blissful.

“No, I didn’t,” Jon says, unsure why he’s arguing with a delirious man. “Who are you talking to?”

Satin doesn’t answer. With a deep sigh he turns toward the wall and is silent, and Jon feels suddenly guilty. Satin was probably thinking of someone he knew long ago. Or someone on the Wall. Jon can only hope they treated him kindly. 

Finally the young steward—Garrell, his name is—returns with a grizzled wildling man in tow. The man has bones hanging from his earlobes and a robe with dozens of pouches sewn to it; one of them must have something for a fever in it. Satin is still murmuring about kissing, and Jon is terrified that the two men, the steward especially, will hear and draw improper conclusions. But the two don’t seem to pay it any mind.

“This is Hirmar, son of Hoffan,” Garrell says nervously as the wildling steps forward.

“Honnaf,” Hirmar says, sounding so offended that Jon fears he might walk out that instant. “My father’s name was Honnaf. Say it, boy. Hon-naf.”

“Hon-naf,” the steward mumbles.

“My father’s name was Honnaf, and he knew every plant as far as the Land of Always Winter.”

“Are there even many plants up there?” Garrell says. “I thought it was just snow.” 

Before Jon can intervene, Hirmar son of Honnaf has grabbed Garrell by the ear, and the boy is squealing. He only lets go after Jon commands the boy to apologize and sends him to boil water.

When Garrell returns with the water, Hirmar mashes up some dried bark into a cup, pours the water over it, and strains it through what looks like a piece of animal intestine. As Jon props Satin up with an arm and a cushion, Hirmar brings the cup to Satin’s lips with a gentleness that Jon hadn’t expected. Satin’s face contorts, and he chokes as the liquid goes down his throat; if it tastes as terrible as it smells, Jon doesn’t envy him at all. Some of the tincture dribbles down Satin’s chin, and Jon wipes it off with the edge of his own tunic.

“The boy’s not going to die, Snow,” Hirmar says, as if the fact should be evident to anyone older than a suckling babe. Jon feels foolish for his fear.

“Make him drink more of this when the sun goes down,” Hirmar commands him, “and give him some broth and marrow,” and with that he’s off, tailed by Garrell who offers him all manner of food and drink that Castle Black can't provide in his rush to make amends. Within the hour Satin no longer sweats so profusely, and his delirious moaning stops. 

*

“I have such a very capable squire,” Satin murmurs around tiny sips of broth. “I hope I’m never well.”

“Don’t say that,” Jon says, more harshly than he means to. As he holds the bowl up to Satin’s lips, he remembers the tone of Hirmar’s voice. _You are a fool to coddle the boy like this,_ it seemed to say. 

But then there is the way Satin smiles when Jon is kind to him. It’s the way Arya smiled when Jon gave Needle to her, and it fills him with a tenderness he can’t defy. There can’t be an endless reservoir of people who need you, he thinks, not in the deep way that Arya needed him, and Sam did, and Satin does. When they’re gone, there are only people who need things from you, which is similar, but not the same. 

Satin drains the bowl of soup, and Jon sets it on the bedside table. He sits at Satin’s side in silence, and listens to his breath. It has been over an hour since he’s vomited, and he’s keeping the broth down; a good sign.

“If I cannot command you to fight for my amusement,” Satin says, turning his head to look at him, “can I ask another boon?”

Jon tenses up, and Satin laughs. “Be at ease. I only meant to ask you to sing for me.”

Jon groans. “I know very few songs. What sort of song do you wish to hear?”

Satin smiles, and despite his cracked lips it’s undeniably lovely; despite his sweat and pallor and runny eyes he is undeniably lovely, and not for the first time Jon is thankful that the boy isn’t a maid, because his heart and arms would be all too happy to be full of such a creature, and he’d know for certain that he was a traitor to the bone. 

But Satin is a man, and his brother, and Jon is safe with him. 

“Nothing too sad.” Satin shifts in the bed. “Perhaps a song of love. I always liked those.”

“I know no songs of love,” Jon says. He pauses, smoothing a damp lock of hair back from Satin’s forehead. “But I may know a story or two.”


End file.
